As Cagney & Lacey, they redefined the role of women on TV. Sarah Crompton
meets Sharon Gless and Tyne Daly
.

When Sharon Gless and Tyne Daly walk into a room together they bring with them exactly the energy and warmth that they once brought to their prime time television hit that started as a cop show and became something more: Cagney & Lacey.

It is hard to overstate the show’s influence in the days when it attracted up to 30 million viewers in America alone. Over six seasons from 1982 to 1988, it won numerous awards and its stars took turns to take home the Emmy award for best actress. When the network cancelled the show, the audience wrote in to save it.

That was the moment Gless realised the impact they were having. She and Daly were on the road to rustle up support. One day, in Washington, she saw a crowd of fans rushing towards her. “There were all these people trying to get in the elevator. I turned to the woman I was with and asked 'Am I famous?’ Because when you are on TV you don’t hear the applause.”

Cagney & Lacey was brilliantly written, and socially bold: it tackled difficult issues such as breast cancer, alcoholism and the difficulties of holding down a job while bringing up children in a way that no mainstream entertainment had ever done before.

Or, arguably, since.

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But at its heart was the relationship between the two women, mother-of-four Mary Beth Lacey and hard-drinking party girl Christine Cagney, beautifully embodied by Daly and Gless. Their friendship on screen always seemed real. It is a pleasure to meet them off-screen and discover that it was, and is.

Now in their 60s, the two are in London for a special event at the BFI to celebrate the 30th anniversary of the series. But they are also here because, by chance, both are taking starring roles in the West End. Gless has just opened in A Round Heeled Woman, based on the true story of a woman who advertised for sexual adventure. On January 12, Daly makes her London stage debut with Master Class, Terrence McNally’s play about Maria Callas in her days as a teacher. Her performance in the same role on Broadway has already won considerable praise.

Sassy and attractive, they sit alongside each other, cracking jokes and finishing each other’s sentences. “If it wasn’t for me, she wouldn’t be here,” says Daly. “Because I was the one who told her to get on the stage.”

“That’s true,” says Gless, with a laugh. “I have always considered myself a reluctant actress. I love to do it, but I am timid. I was trained on film, and performing in front of a live audience always frightened me.”

Daly’s experience was the other way round. She came from a family of actors and imagined her career would be firmly rooted on stage: “I didn’t think I was decorative enough to be in films.”

Yet it is Cagney & Lacey that defines both actresses for a generation of women. Daly was cast first, and she persuaded Gless to take part. She arrived at Gless’s house, on her birthday, bearing balloons and a bottle of champagne. “We sat on the floor,” remembers Gless. “Right,” says Daly. “And I said, come on, it’s a terrific part and these kinds of parts don’t come along for women all the time, so take a chance, come out and play with me.”

Together they created what Daly calls “two of the finest written characters ever on television”, and in the process redefined what women could be on TV: they looked and behaved like real women in their thirties, not the streamlined dream of Charlie’s Angels.

“You wouldn’t believe the heat we took,” says Daly. “They wanted to give me a crotch piece so my blouse wouldn’t hang out. I said Mary Beth hasn’t paid attention to what the back of her blouse is doing since her first kid was born.”

“I used to wear a minimising bra because I had big tits and blonde hair and I just didn’t want to trade on that,” says Gless.

Daly knew that TV producers worked on the principle of divide and rule. “We sat down pretty early on and said it will be a united front. If you have a question, come knock on my door and I’ll do the same, and if we reach a point where one of us wants to do something and the other doesn’t, then we won’t do it.”

This approach took their friendship through Gless’s affair with the series producer Barney Rosenzweig (now her husband of some 20 years) and into their lives. “It’s just got better and better,” says Gless.

Now they are supporting each other in their stage ventures. For Gless, although the play is sometimes physically explicit, it is the emotional exposure that is more daunting: “The woman’s courage was amazing to me. There were times when even I gasped when reading the book, and I am drawn to things like that,” she says.

For Daly the courage required is of a different order. “I always play someone recognisable and homey. When Terrence asked me to do this, I thought really this is not up my street. I’m too old, I don’t know any Italian, I know nothing about opera and I don’t have a look. To be Maria Callas, to see if I could match that, that is part of the obligation of this role.”

“She’s brilliant, absolutely brilliant,” says Gless, beaming with affection. Daly smiles in return. “When Sharon first went on stage her beau told her she was 'a bit magnificent’, and then when I was on Broadway in Gypsy there was a sign saying 'Tyne Daly is magnificent’, and I couldn’t see it without thinking of Sharon.” They both roar with laughter. And that is exactly what they are. A bit magnificent.